Microsoft is really making it hard not to distrust them, aren't they? We already talked about Mono and Moonlight this weekend, and now we're notified of something else. Apparently, the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1, released earlier this year, installs a Firefox extension which could not be uninstalled easily (registry hacking was needed). To make matters worse, this extension came with a pretty big security hole (at least, that's what everyone says). A newer version of this extension has been pushed out in May, which can be uninstalled the proper way. As it turns out, Firefox apparently has a limitation in that extensions installed at the machine level (instead of the user level) cannot be uninstalled from within the extensions GUI.

It is not unusual to have software that is impossible (or partly possible) to uninstall on Windows. Windows users should have got used to it by now.

After installing Microsoft Office, Outlook Express, NET framework itself, for example, the system is hardly possible or impossible to revert to previous state. You've got those, so called, "components" embedded, and can't get rid of them without reinstalling the whole system.